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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.

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Thanks, man. So good to see you today. I'm so glad that you're with us. In 1936, there was a large gathering. Thousands gathered together in Hamburg, Germany, to celebrate the launch of a new naval vessel. This is a very famous photo because everyone at the gathering give a Hail Hitler sign to give their loyalty and their affection to Adolf Hitler. Everybody except one. Which is why this photo is famous, because there's one individual who has his arms crossed in defiance, refusing to to give his loyalty to Hitler. And there's been memes shared like, be this guy, but who is this guy? And his name is August Landmesser. He had joined the Nazi party to keep his job, but he fell in love with a young Jewish woman and their relationship was illegal. And he was risking his life and his career. He already knew that he was in grave danger at this moment. He'd already been kicked out of the Nazi party, but he still had his job. And he stood there at that shipyard with his arms crossed in defiance, not listening to the governing authorities of his land and his day. The question we're putting on the table is when do you stand in defiance not only to governing authorities, but this can apply to your job. When do you stand in defiance? When you're asked to do something that violates your conscience or your biblical conviction? When do you disobey authorities that God has placed over you in your life? Where? When's the moment that a Christian should disobey is the question on the table? And to get us started, I thought I would talk about COVID and church gatherings just for fun. Now, in this section, I'm going to ask you not to clap, because we only clap during on the table when we talk about Jesus, because we actually do realize that there's different viewpoints and we try to respect one another. But in March of 2020, the world was shut down. Do you remember? It was at first the 15 days to flatten the curve. 15 days turned into much longer than just 15 days. And our church, like churches across the U.S. and really churches across the world, we took our worship services online. So throughout March and April and into May, our worship services were online only. We started gathering with elders, asking and praying and seeking God. When will we have services again? When will we open back our church? Church for worship services? There were differences of opinion not. Not among the elders. But really in the broader culture, there are some that would say you cannot, you must not gather. It's a global pandemic. And there's verses in the Bible like Romans 13 that says you should submit to the governing authorities of the land. Do not gather. There were others that said you must gather. We must gather because there's verses in the scripture like Hebrews 10:25 that says, Let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let's encourage one another even more as we see the day approaching. So those viewpoints were coming our way as we're prayerfully making a decision. And at the same time, a second pandemic quickly had emerged. Not a pandemic of a virus, but a pandemic of mental health deterioration. As people were put in stay at home orders and isolation, mental health was quickly deteriorating. I mean, some of you had just life events ripped from you. There were some who had high school graduations over zoom. There were, there were some parents who were excited to a grant to be a first time grandparent. They couldn't even be at the hospital because they could only hear about it after or receive FaceTime. I mean, it just life events were causing such pain in people's lives. And so we believed, we wanted to get people together so that they could be in community. So we started gathering in July. We wanted to as wisely and as safely as we could, but we started having worship services in July. Now, if you remember California during that time, the rules were constantly changing. At first it was a number system and then it moved to a color system. There were different edicts that were giving. One edict was, you can't sing at church, which we have Bible verses that tell us to sing at church. And so those were struggles. And then we kept gathering all through the fall. And then moving into Christmas time, California, or at least Orange county was declared to be in the purple zone. If you remember, in the color systems there were, red wasn't the highest, purple was the highest. And so if we would gather as a church, it would be, technically, some viewed it as illegal that we were disobeying the government to gather. So people started calling the church. Lots of people asking, what are we going to do? I just read that we're in purple now. What are we to do? So I sent an email to the entire church saying that though we were in the purple tier and please don't clap, that nothing was going to change, that we were going to continue to gather. So we kept gathering as a church and and there were two different kinds of emails that came in that were hurtful for me. One email was how dare you, Pastor Eric, this is so unloving. This is unloving to our neighbor to gather in the middle of a global pandemic when we really believe that gathering people together was very loving. Now we didn't guilt people for not coming. We tried to make church accessible to everyone at their comfort level. But we believed that for the sake of people and their own health, that we needed to get people together in community. So that hurt. And another one that hurt was, and some of you sent this one. And I know you meant it as a compliment, but Eric, I'm so proud of you. This is so awesome. Let's gather and tell the government what's up. I mean it was essentially let's gather to protest. And I am Will. I want to gather out of obedience to him. But I don't want the point of our gathering to be to disobey the government. I didn't want anything other than Jesus to be the center of our gathering. Jesus must be the hero of, of our worship services. Only Jesus. He's the reason that we gather. Now you can clap for Jesus. Right? Okay, but, but Eric, what about that passage? I mean, it's a fair question. And some of you did wrestle with our decision to gather as early as we did in the month of July. What about the passage about obeying the leaders of the government or submitting to governing authorities? I just want to be honest and put it on the table. This is Romans, chapter 13. You're going to see this passage today. Today. This is God's word. Let everyone submit to the governing authorities. Since there is no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are instituted by God. So then the one who resists the authority is opposing God's command. And those who oppose it will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you want to be unafraid of the one in authority? Do what is good and you will have its referring to the governing leaders approval. Do what is good and you will have its approval. This is God's word. Now when you wrestle with the question, when do you disobey your leaders? Again, not only governmental leaders, but any leader who's in authority over you. The answer cannot be, well, I'll disobey if my leader doesn't love God, or I'll disobey if my leader is unethical. That the answer is really not that simple. And how do we know that we know that because the apostle Paul is writing this to Christians who live in Rome. And the leader of the Roman Empire at the time is Nero. And Nero was categorically very evil. Historically, we know how evil Nero was. He killed his own mom. In fact, Tacitus, the famous Roman historian, recounts that when Nero sent people, his guards, into her chambers with swords to kill her, that she knew that her son was going to have her killed. And she said to the guards, strike here for this boar, Nero. Essentially, my womb brought this evil person into the world. Strike here. Because this is how this evil atrocity, Nero, came into the world. Not only did Nero kill his own mom, he burned his own city, Rome. And then he blamed the Christians. And then he persecuted Christians. He gathered Christians together. History tells us that Christians were turned into human torches to line the pathway to his palace. That's how much he persecuted Christians. And this is the one who's in charge when Paul says, submit to the governing authority. So what is this passage really teaching us? I want to show you some things. First, this passage, don't miss. This is really emphasizing God's authority. We read this that there is no authority except from God. Now we wrestle with this because sometimes you'll have an authority in your life that you don't particularly enjoy being the authority in your life. You may have a boss that you don't trust or respect. And this verse is teaching that every authority exists under the authority of God. That God allows people to be in their positions, that God is the ultimate authority, even if the person who's in authority doesn't realize that God's the ultimate authority, that God rules and reigns over everything. And there's no earthly authority that exists without God allowing that person to exist. In fact, when Jesus stood before Pilate, the one who would order that he would be crucified, Jesus told Pilate this. You would have no authority over me at all, Jesus answered, if it hadn't been given to you from above. So Jesus tells Pilate, you're only in authority because the authority, the ultimate authority God allows you to be. And Jesus submits himself to Pilate, is going to be crucified, but he's also obeying the ultimate authority. God, because he's obeying the mission to go to the cross and die for us. Now, notice the passage that I'm teaching today challenges you to submit to the governing authorities, does not say, obey the governing authorities. There's a difference between submitting and obeying. Eric, what do you mean? Let me explain it this way. Very Common over the last several years. There'll be a young adult at our Thursday night service who will come to me after 19, 20 years old, still lives at home with his or her parents. And the young adult will say, I have become a Christian. I have converted. I grew up in an Islamic family, Muslim background, but I now worship Jesus. I believe in Jesus. My parents told me I can't come here anymore and I can't have a Bible and I can never say the name Jesus again. What do I do? What I say to the young adult is, you are under the. You live at home still, you're under the authority of your parents in every way. You should obey your parents in every way you can. You should always have a posture of submission. Like, what do you mean? Do you have a curfew? Yes. Okay, it's 11 o'. Clock. So you're home at 10:50, 10:45, every time. Do you have dinner? Family dinner. How many times a week? Two. Okay. If it starts at 6, you're downstairs helping set the table. At 5:30, you stay after you clean the dishes. You speak to your mom with respect and adoration. You speak to your dad with tenderness and care and respect. And any way that you can obey them, you obey them. But now listen to me. You read your Bible, you have a Bible hidden in your room or on your phone. You come here and you worship Jesus and you speak the name of Jesus because He's the one who's rescued you. In every way you can, you obey them, but you can't obey them in this. Now, submitting is having a posture that you know that they're your parents. So there's a difference between submitting and obeying. So these early Christians, the Apostle Paul's writing them in the Roman Empire, he's saying to them, submit to the governing authorities. Basically, let's be the best Roman citizens we can be. We're going to pay our taxes, we're going to care for the poor. We're going to be exemplary people in front of the world. And they're going to see our good deeds and they're going to wonder, who is this God that we worship? So in every way you can, you obey the governing leaders. You have a posture of submitting that you know for some reason God has put this earthly authority over you and you're going to submit, you're going to be humble before this earthly authority. But you never disobey God. Because in the Roman Empire you're supposed to say, Caesar is Lord. And the early Christians, they would not say, Caesar is Lord. They kept insisting that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is Lord. So submit but not obey. Now Jesus gives us this example as well. One day, some people came to Jesus and they said, jesus, should we pay taxes in the Roman Empire to Caesar? Jesus says, give me a coin. Give me a coin. Somebody gives a coin. Hey, whose image is on this coin? Caesar's. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and give to God what is God's. Yeah, you're the only service that a clash for that 11:30. You're the best. I love the 11:30. Here's what he was saying. Hey, the coin of Caesar's on here. So give the Caesars what a Caesar's. But guess what image is on you. Caesar's image is not on you. The image of God is on you. So you give your taxes to Caesar, but you give God your heart because his image is on you. And so you ultimately obey him. You ultimately obey him. Now, the context is also different. This passage that we're reading in Romans 13 is different from our day. This was an empire, so there's one leader in charge of everything, the emperor. We live, and this is God's grace to us in a constitutional republic. Now, I realize we have people who are listening from all over the world. And so I'm speaking in this moment about what it is like to live in the US and what it's like to follow Jesus in the United States of America. We don't live in a empire where there's one leader. This has really made decisions during COVID challenging when people would come to me and say, eric, what about Romans 13? You're saying that we should have church, but we read this and the government saying this. I would say I'm reading Romans 13:2. And honestly, I'm wrestling with how to apply this, because it was written to an empire. And we live in a constitutional republic. In fact, we have congregations in all kinds of different cities, and every one of the cities has different rules, and then the state has a different rule, and then the CDC is giving different guidelines, and then the office of the President is giving different guidelines. And this is actually a blessing in our context. Sitting over all of them is the Constitution of the United States of America that has a First Amendment, and the First Amendment guarantees our right to religious liberty and to gather. And so I'm grateful for that right. And above the Constitution of the United States of America is the word of God, the scripture which commands us to gather together. So this text is emphasizing that God's got the ultimate authority. But this text also emphasizes the role of government. I want you to see this. What is then the role of government according to this passage? For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. That God's design of government is that a government would restrain evil or push back evil and would allow good to prosper. Now this is God's design. We know, sadly, that this doesn't always happen. My heart is broken alongside brothers and sisters in our church who've moved here from Iran as their hearts are breaking for their homeland, as thousands are being slaughtered and massacred, as an evil regime is not protecting people, is actually pushing forth evil. And the role of government is to protect people, is to push back evil, not see evil advance. The role of government is to be the servant of God for the protection of people, not to be the rival of God. Now, anytime government sets itself up as God's rival instead of God's servant, God's people have the right to disobey. If a government ever sets itself up as a rival of God, then God's people can disobey. Francis Schaeffer said it this way. God has ordained the state as a delegated authority. It is not autonomous. The state is to be an agent of justice, to restrain evil by punishing the wrongdoer and to protect the good in society. When it does the reverse, it has no proper authority. Now one of the blessings of living in the United States of America is that our founding document even allows for a disobedience. This is the Declaration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute new government. Now, as Christians, we would hold the Scripture well higher than the Declaration of Independence as our ultimate authority. But we can say that there's lines in that Declaration of Independence which reflect some biblical principles such as all people being created equal. And so we're grateful for a document that allows us to view people, all people, as image bearers of God. So what are some examples in the Scripture when people have disobeyed their leaders? Let me give you two, One from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. In the Old Testament, perhaps the most prominent example is when God's people are dragged away from Israel into Babylonian captivity. Young men are brought into Babylonian captivity and they actually submit to the governing authorities. The reason they do so is they read a letter from Jeremiah the prophet. And Jeremiah the prophet had told them, when you go to Babylon, pray for Babylon, seek its peace. When it prospers, you prosper. You plant gardens, you build homes, you marry, you prosper there, you grow there. And you want Babylon to thrive. So these young men are dragged from their homeland, Israel, into exile in Babylonian captivity. And they learn the Babylonian language according to Daniel chapter one. They read the Babylonian literature, they thrive in Babylon. And then a moment comes when the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, says, you know what? I have an idea. I'm gonna build a 90 foot statue to myself because I'm so awesome. And when the music starts, you're to bow down and worship me. These three Hebrew young men who actually submitted, so much so to the Babylonian culture that they even took Babylonian names. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Not Jewish names, Babylonian names. Even though they were Jewish. That's how much they submitted to the governing authorities of their land until this moment. When Nebuchadnezzar said, worship me, they drew a line in the sand and said, we are sorry. We will not bow down before you or anything else other than Yahweh, our one true God. Nebuchadnezzar says, if you don't, there will be consequences. And they say, we believe God will save us, but even if he doesn't, this is verse 18 of Daniel 3. Even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king, to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up. When it comes to you asking us to disobey God, we will then disobey you to obey God. That's Daniel chapter three. You get to the New Testament, you see another example. The early followers of Jesus are told by the Jewish leaders to stop telling people about Jesus because the Jewish leaders hated it. Because the Jewish leaders wanted the people to rely on them to interpret the law. The early Christians are like, you don't even need all of these commands. You need the grace of Jesus. Jesus came here. He died for you. He was resurrected from the dead for you. You just follow after Jesus. The religious Jewish leaders hated the early Christians, and so they brought them in. This is Acts chapter 5. After they brought them in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin. And the high priest asked, didn't we strictly order you not to teach in his name, in this name, Jesus. Look, you filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood. And Peter and the apostles replied, we must obey God rather than people. So you're asking us to disobey him. We don't disobey him. We're willing to disobey you to obey him. So to answer the question, when should Christians disobey their leaders? Here's the answer. If someone asks you, gives you a command that God forbids, you, disobey your leader. If someone commands you to do something that God disobeys, you, disobey your leader. If someone forbids you from doing something that God commands, you, disobey your leader. Now, to help you understand how the world is set up according to the scripture, some of you are like, I love it when he has an iPad. God is the authority over three institutions. When you read the scripture, you see all three of these institutions. There's the family. Early in The Bible, Genesis 1 and 2, God begins family. And really society flourishes as families flourish. God also we saw Today in Romans 13 that God sets up government. And then God has started his church. Now, God is ultimately the authority overall. And when these work together, well, it is ultimately to serve and bless people. But the church has a special relationship with Christ. Now, God is ultimately over all. But Christ says that he bought the church with his own blood. Not every family belongs to Christ. Not every family has bowed before him. Not every government is following after Christ. But the church belongs to Jesus. The church has been bought by the blood of Jesus. People will sometimes say to me, eric, I love your church. I'm like, man, I'm glad that you love it's our church. But really, it's not my church. I didn't buy the church. Jesus bought the church. Jesus bought the church with his blood. It's not my church. I. I could not buy the church because I'm not perfect and sinless. There's only one who can buy the church by his blood, and his name is Jesus. The church belongs to Jesus. It is his church. Now the church will last forever. Governments come and go. They come and go. They don't last forever. In fact, Jesus was saying that Caesar is the head of the government, but Christ is the head of the church. And there's times, and we saw this, I think, during COVID when the government overreaches and tries to tell the church what it must do. And in that time, the church must say, caesar, you're the head of the government. But you're not head of the church. Christ is head of his church. Christ rules his church. There's times when an unhealthy church will try to tell a family what to do that is outside of the scripture. Now, as your pastor, I'm going to teach you how you should live as a family and how you should live as a Christian in society. But an unhealthy church would tell a family to do things that the scripture doesn't speak of. Or an unhealthy church would tell someone to disobey things that are in the scripture. If a church ever tells a family to do something that violates what the scripture says, that church has lost the authority to tell the family how to follow after God. And so there's unhealthy all of this. But what's good news for us is this lasts forever. What we belong to the church of Jesus remains forever. Kingdoms rise and fall. But the church that Jesus started the gates of Hades will not be able to overcome her. She lasts forever. And Christ is the head of the church. All right, so let me get really practical as I wrap up two things for you. And I'm trying to apply this more than government, but also your parents, if you're a teenager, your boss if you are an employee, the person who's over you, number one, obey joyfully when you can. And most of the time, what is asked of you, you can joyfully obey. And you actually gain credibility to disobey at times if the vast majority of the time you're joyfully obeying whenever it is that you can. Peter and Paul, who wrote these letters to Christians in Rome who had an evil emperor named Nero, were saying, and Peter actually wrote in 1 Peter, chapter 2, honor the emperor. The Apostle Paul is saying, submit to the governing authorities. They are saying, listen, we're going to be amazing Roman citizens. We're going to care for the poor. We're going to pay our tax taxes. We're going to love people well. And people are going to wonder what kind of people we are in every way we can. We should obey joyfully. I just got back from South Asia and there are people who your church, our church, supports financially, who are planting churches among unreached people groups where it's illegal to tell someone about Jesus. So there are people that we are supporting right now that today they are sharing the gospel, the good news of Jesus in a place where it's illegal to do so. So they are disobeying their governing authorities to tell people about Jesus. But in every way they can, they joyfully obey. In every rule that they can obey, they obey. In every law that they can obey, they obey. And God is doing an amazing work. We heard from one of the pastors who we support who became a Christian in a miraculous way, like dreams and visions and read the scripture. And he goes back to the village where he grew up, where no one's a Christian, and he walks in and he goes to the center of the village and he starts to share the gospel, the good news of Jesus with people. Now, in that culture who believes in the caste system, for someone to share the gospel with you, if you really believe in the caste system, that person's condemning you to a lower caste in your next life. And so these people went against this guy who is telling them about Jesus. They beat him up, they hang him upside down from a tree in his village. And people throughout the day come and beat him and kick him and spit on him and urinate on him and humiliate him. At the end of the day, a woman in the village feels so sorry for him, and she finally cuts him down. He runs into the woods begging, God, what do I do next? He's bruised and battered and humiliated, and he believes God tells him, go back to the village. He goes back to the same place where they had him hanging upside down, and he starts to tell people about Jesus again. And the leaders of the village say, you came back here after how we treated you. Going to listen to you now. He's now the pastor of a church of over 100 people in that village. So he disobeyed where he must, but he joyfully obeys everything he can and every rule he can obey in that culture, he obeys. And he speaks about where he lives as if it's the best place in the world to live, which is how we should speak about where we live and every way we can. We obey joyfully. Listen, we don't want to be the kind of Christians. There's so many laws in our culture that we can obey. There's so many. You don't be the kind of Christian who has a Christian bumper sticker on your car and you're going 95 miles an hour in and out of traffic because I'm freeing the Lord, suckers. Don't be that guy. Don't be the person who your homeowners association says, no loud music after 11. Or your city has an ordinance that no loud music after 11. You're like, I. I don't care. I'm free. I'm Bumping worship music at 12:30. Pastor E. Listen. That makes it worse. Don't bump worship music past the ordinance time in every way you can. You obey joyfully. But then this brings you to number two. You disobey courageously when you must. Then there's moments where perhaps you're going to come to a juncture in your life or your career where you're asked to sign something or to agree to something that you cannot. You disobey courageously when you must. Martin Luther King. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Gave us a great example of civil disobedience. As there were laws and ordinances promoting segregation in schools and in public transportation. And the movement he led. He challenged the people that we're going to disobey, but we're going to disobey civilly, peacefully. He wrote this in his letter from a Birmingham jail. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. What Dr. King was doing was very wise. He was appealing to the moral law of the Declaration of Independence that all people are created equal. And he was saying, because all people are created equal. That's the overarching moral code that we must abide by. August Landmaster. Landmaster stood with his arms crossed, defying everyone around him who had hailed Adolf Hitler. There's a cost to define. He was arrested, lost his job. The woman that he had fallen in love with was arrested and shipped to a concentration camp where she was killed. There's a cost to define. But a moment's gonna come, perhaps, in your life where you're gonna have to decide, am I gonna obey God or am I gonna obey people? There was a cost to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They told Nebuchadnezzar, the king. We're not going to bow down before you and worship you. We only worship Yahweh, the one true God. And so Nebuchadnezzar threw them into the fire, threw them in the fire to execute them. But Nebuchadnezzar looked up and he asked the people around him, this is all in Daniel, chapter three. Wait a second. I thought you threw three in the fire. Isn't there three in the fire? But look, I see four in the fire. And the fourth one looks like a son of God. God the son saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire and saw his sons. Those who were standing for him. And he decided that because they stand up for me, I'm going to stand with them. And God the Son jumped into the fire with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. You stand up for him. He will stand with you in the middle of the fire. You stand up for him and he stands with you. Stephen, one of the very first Christian martyr who disobeyed the religious leaders who kept saying, don't teach about Jesus any longer. Stephen in Acts, chapter seven, tells people who are surrounding him, listen, we killed Jesus and we can't earn our way to him by obeying the law. But Jesus loved us and died for us. And he was resurrected from the dead on the third day. And you need to believe in Jesus. The people hated those words so much, they picked up stones to stone Steven. Stephen to kill him. The scripture says in Acts, chapter seven. Stephen full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed into heaven and he saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. We paused there for a moment. Look at that verse. Does something look different to you than every other time you read where Jesus says after he ascended back into heaven? Do you see it? Other verses say that Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. This is the only time I'm seeing where Jesus is standing. Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God. It is as if Jesus, who is seated at the right hand of God, sees his son, sees his boy Stephen standing up for him. And he stands. And he gives his son a standing ovation to welcome them in to everlasting life. Jesus sees Stephen stand up for him, and Jesus stands with Stephen. You stand up for him and he will stand with you. You stand up in the fiery furnace. The challenges of this life. You stand up and you draw a line and you say no. When it comes to disobeying God, I won't disobey him. I'll obey him, even if that means I disobey people. I'm going to stand up for him. Because no one has done for me what Jesus has done for me. No one has rescued me as Jesus has rescued me. No one has cast my sin as far as the east is from the west. No one is worthy of my affection and my attention like Jesus. Jesus is my everlasting king. All the kingdoms in this world will one day fall, but not his kingdom, I stand up for Him. And when you stand up for him, he stands with you. Whether in a fiery furnace or when you cross from this life into everlasting life, he stands with you as you stand with Him. So let's stand and let's worship our everlasting King. All right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you were gentle, approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.